Letting Go
by TheHildur92
Summary: Hotch knows that he has done wrong. Can he admit that to Reid, or what is more, to himself? Established Reid/Hotch.
1. Chapter 1

_I sit in my office on the couch, the curtains drawn, the only illumination which penetratres the darkness is a small lamp on a sidetable. My face rests in my hands and for quite some time, I have been unable to move. It is as if my colleagues have become aware of my abrupt change in mood and have stayed away on purpose since nobody has knocked on my door since lunchtime, and even then, I did not respond. No doubt it has something to do with Dave forbidding the others from interrupting me. Thus, people have been tiptoeing past my office towards the one occupied by Dave, not even daring to make a sound, let alone knock on my door over trifles. God only knows what he told them, but my best friend no doubt realized something was up when I yelled at him this morning over nothing before the others came in. He did not respond, merely stood there with his arms folded over his chest, allowing me to vent before I grew angrier at the lack of response and walked out to my office, slamming the door behind me like a grumpy teenager. I have been sitting here since then, listening to the sounds of the bull-pen and watching the shadows creeps up the walls, as they are doing in my soul._

_Once, I thought I could even hear him laugh. _

_Only one person dared to upset the peacefulness of my lair. Prentiss came and knocked on the door but I did not answer her. When I was sure she was gone, I opened the door and noted a tray on the floor. She brought me a hamburger and I ate it ravenously, grateful for her kind consideration._

_The workday is done and everyone has gone home except for me. What do I have to go home to except an empty bed and cold walls that seem to close in on me like a veritable prison since Jack is with his aunt?_

_There is a knock on my door and by the softness of the sound I know that it is him. I do not answer it nor do I initiate a verbal response. I stay exactly as I am. _

_He enters and I can feel his nervousness. I know him so well that I am aware of him running his hand through his hair nervously. His voice is shaking as he speaks. I know he is afraid of my response."Babe?"_

_I do not answer him and he sits down on the sofa table opposite me. Wearily, he reaches out and grabs my wrists, pulling my hands gently from my face. He speaks again, the voice filled with love I don´t deserve. "Aaron?"_

_I finally look up into the dark eyes of Spencer Reid. "I am sorry," is all I manage to say after having spent the day preparing a whole speech on the subject. _

"_I know you are," counters my subordinate, knitting our fingers together. The implication in his voice tells me that a mere apology is not enough. _

"_I was never good at controlling myself when it comes to you," I continue, as I watch our entwined fingers lying on my knee. My mind goes back to those few first few heady months when our relationship began, how my appetite for him was never satisfied. We would have sex everytime an opportunity presented itself. On a few occasions I would send the rest of the team out into the field and chuckle at the thought of how Morgan would feel if he knew I took his "pretty boy" to the storeroom of the local policestation and fucked him senseless while the other man was risking his life. I could not help feeling a little gleeful at the thought, even now. "After all, you are mine."_

_The fingers of Spencer were quickly dislodged from mine and he arose. From the fury in his face, I knew I had chosen the wrong words. "I belong to me. I am not yours, Aaron, as you have taken such pains to prove."_

_I wince as I recall how often I have kicked him out of my bed, forced him to keep quiet about our relationship. None of the team knows, or at least they play at not knowing. I have seen Dave shoot me a glance a few times when I have been carefully studying Reid, as I am often wont to do when there is nothing else to focus on. He has probably guessed at the truth, but has kept quiet for diplomatic reasons. He knows of the damage it could to do my career if word got out that I was having an illicit affair with a collegue. Not only is he much younger then me, Reid is also a subordinate and a male one at that. Let us not forget that the affair started while I was still married and the higher uppers, particularly a bitch on wheels called Erin Strauss, would gleefully use the information to get me fired._

_Spencer goes to a window and opens the blind, stands there and watches the empty parking lot outside. Lights from the streetlamps shine in and illuminate his face, giving it an ethereal glow so that he looks like a god instead of human. How can something so beautiful be of this world? Pain rips in my chest as the desire to protect him floods through me, to keep him from ever experiencing how truly cruel the world is. The last words Gideon ever spoke to me float through my mind. He told me to take care of the kid, and I have done so to the best of my abilities, though granted, it was probably not in the fashion he had envisioned. _

_I finally arise from the couch and head over to where my lover is standing by the window. Cautiously, I reach out and cup his cheek with my hand, allowing my finger to graze over the black eye he is sporting. The one I gave him. _

_The touch reminds of a similar moment after our first proper night together. Hayley had moved out and I had been filled with loneliness. Therefore it was all too easy to convince Reid to have a sleepover after many encounters at the office and seedy hotel rooms. In the morning I had awoken alone and was unable to find him anywhere, until I noted that the door to the deck was open. Spencer was standing outside, holding a cup of tea, wearing only my pyjama bottoms in the warm June sunshine. I walked outside and put my arms around him from behind, resting my chin on his shoulder. Have we not been happy these last three years? As my eyes gaze into his, I can tell he is reminiscing about earlier times as well._

_Yet, last night made me question it all. Perhaps it was all a lie, built on shifting sand and bound to collapse like lies often do? _


	2. Chapter 2

_I allow my finger to once again trace the black eye. My voice feels heavy when I finally break the silence which has settled between us like a fortress wall. It sounds interrogative even though I do not intend for it to be so. "What did you tell Morgan about the black eye?"_

"_He did not even dare to ask," is the response from my lover. I wince as I recall how the dynamic between Reid and the older man changed after our relationship began. They spent less time together and the young genius began limiting the amount of contact he had with his best friend after work, in case he were to accidentally blurt out the secret. Of course, it was a choice Reid made on his own, but I was the force behind it. With no secret to keep, the relationship between the two men might have stayed the same as it was in earlier days, when they used to hang out together after work and grab a beer, and Morgan would still perhaps call him "kid" and "pretty boy." Such things were a part of the past now._

_My hand falls from his face. I repeat my since apology. _

"_I am not the one you should be apologising to. I am not the one you beat up, except for that one blow you dealt me when trying to pull you off the guy."_

_My mind goes back to the evening before and that fateful visit to the local pub, how I had launched at the guy and beat him senseless, and how in the fray when Reid was trying to pull me away from him, I had struck him once. I could recall how seethingly angry I had been, how the blood had pumped in my veins and I had almost seen red with fury._

"_But he was hitting on you," I protest weakly at best. "He was pulling out all the moves, placing your errant lock of hair behind your ear..." _

_Did Reid NOT know this is how un-subs worked?_

"_We were discussing Star Trek, since you have no interest in such matters," interrupts my lover. "I thought I could make a new friend. Now I know that is impossible. Even if he had been hitting on me, your actions were not justifiable." He runs his hand through his hair in frustration. "God, Aaron, if somebody had realized who we were, the guy might have lodged a complaint and gotten you fired."_

"_I know." I hang my head with shame. How can I explain to him what happened, since I am not usually open with my feelings? _

"_If we were a normal couple, hell even a couple at all, you could have simply walked up to us and put your arm around me. The other guy would have gotten the message clearly enough." I can hear the frustration in his voice, which indicates how often this topic has been discussed between us. _

"_You would have preferred that?"_

"_Anything would have been preferable to bashing in the head of some guy for no reason at all." _

_The jealousy wells up in me once more and I want to scream aloud, to protest, but __something within me rebels against such measures, knowing that Spencer is right._

_My lover heads to the couch and motions for me to join him and I promptly do so. He regards me sadly with his brown eyes and suddenly, I want to kiss away the pain which I have placed upon his shoulders. I know that any such advances will be refuted, however, so I allow him to speak. "I know the reasons for your actions…"_

_I am quick to interrupt Spencer. "What in the hell are you talking about?"_

"_Hayley." This one word fills up the void in the room and almost causes an explosion on a level with a supernova. It is a subject we have always steered clear off._

_I rise up from my seat like a match has been lit under my ass. "You have no right to speak about her or even mention her name!" _

_I am almost about to loose control once again, but Spencer is calm in the face of the monster lurking within me, after all he knows my shadows better then anyone, even my late wife. "You could not save Hayley and so you go overboard to try and protect me from harm."_

_Surprised that I have become such an open book when I pride myself on being unreadable, my anger is forgotten when the truth is spoken and I sink onto the couch stunned. Reid carefully inches closer and places his hand upon mine which is resting on the couch before continuing. "I do not need protection anymore, Aaron. I am no innocent child but fully grown man."_

"_I know that," I return, before shifting my hand so that it is on top of his. I decide to become completely truthful for once in my life. It has always been made up of compartments, but now I will give Spencer the chance to stand back and see the whole painting, the fortress has been conquered and now he can claim the loot. "There is a goodness in you that I do not want to see vanish. I do not want to see you loose who you are for the sake of doing this job. God knows what I would do if you didn't always come to me with the latest useless fact you have learned or you began matching your socks. It keeps me sane." _

_In spite of himself, Reid smiles with the force of a thousand suns, it is the only light needed to frighten away the darkness of my soul._

_I know immediately from the hopeful look on his face that I have said too much. _

"_Then perhaps we can..." he begins to suggest, but I am quick to interrupt him._

"_No, Reid. We can´t," I tell him gently but firmly before arising from the couch and taking up the position he took by the window some minutes before. I have not called him Reid in private since we began sleeping together. _

_He follows and puts his arms around my waist, very much like I did all those years ago on the deck. I reflexively turn in his arms to face him. "I can´t be what you want me to be." _

_His hands fall from my waist as he gazes up into my eyes. I can see the hurt and disappointment written in his eyes. I know he wants a saviour, the knight-in-shining armour… I can't be that person, nor do I want to be._

_It felt like only yesterday that I was everything he wanted me to be. Where did it all go so horribly wrong? _

_I laugh, a harsh cold laugh, devoid of mirth. "Let us face it, what the hell do I know about normal family life?"_

"_Because of your father...," suggests Spencer. "Since he used to beat you."_

"_And yours left," I point out scathingly. My own ability for cruelty often amazes and astounds me. More then anything, I want him to leave."We both know why you became involved with me."_

"_Because I was looking for a father figure? Wouldn´t Gideon or Rossi have been the preferable choice if that was indeed the case? We both know there were other reasons for my choosing you."_

"_Such as?" I cross my arms in front of my chest and wait impatiently for his response._

"_I loved you."_

"_You loved me?" I repeat astonished, noting instantly that he spoke in the past tense. _

"_Yes, I did love you," Spencer confirms as he begins pacing the floor in front of me, trying to give voice to his thoughts. "Yet, it has been anything but easy to adapt to your rules. I did that in the beginning gladly, until I found how my feelings for you grew. Thus, it has become more and more difficult to accept the situation, how you can profess you own me one minute and then ignore me the next. I kept thinking that things would change, but..."_

_He stops in front of me. "It is not going to, though, is it?" _

"_What does that mean, then?" I question, both fearing and yearning to know the answer. _

"_That it is over." My lover looks serene enough in the light from the lamp, which means I almost miss the single tear running down his cheek. He is about to turn away and walk out the door when I grab his wrist and force him to turn back. Before he can react, my lips are on his, hard, hot and demanding. He is about to protest but my tongue in his mouth prevents him from speaking much. Soon enough, we are clinging to each other like drowning men do that splinter of wood in the sea even though they know it is to no avail. They will be dashed upon the rocks. _

_As I undress him, caress his __soft alabaster skin, I commit each freckle and scar to memory. I kiss each one in turn. I lay him down upon my desk, remembering the dreams we shared together. As I push into him, kiss him on the back of his neck, feel him writhing beneath me with desire and bucking up against me to meet my thrusts, I know I shall never do so again. _

_Neither one of us knows how to even say goodbye, so we put our clothes back on in silence. _

_I take my seat behind my desk, taking note of the shining shield which bears my name and the picture of my son, smiling for the camera and I feel empty inside, knowing they will be the sole reasons for my existence from now on. I will never allow anyone to get as close to me as Reid did. Never again. _

_I couldn't take this stinging pain a third time around._

_His hand is on the door when I speak his name. Spencer answers promptly. "I will get you the files on the Morton case tomorrow, sir."_

_Then he is gone. _

_I am about to run after him, prevent him from leaving. Surely, after all, we can make it work? Then I remember all I can offer him are broken dreams and shattered hopes, a heart in such pieces even the gods could not piece it back together. Reid deserves more then a lifetime of secrets and stolen moments. I have been a damn selfish son of a bitch by forcing him to sacrifice so much and giving him nothing in return. _

_I love him enough to let him go._

_I dig into my desk and find the bottle of scotch Strauss had kept hidden in her office and I found before she went into rehab. I take one drink, then another and another before blissful oblivion overcomes me. _


End file.
